Daycare
by great-growlithe-gamer
Summary: He wasn't sure how it had happened, but after the Cy-bug event, he found that the president had made a drawn small crowd of kids to them whenever they were hanging out...just a short one-shot exploring just how drastiaclly Ralph's image changed after the events of the movie.


**AN: This is just a little idea that struck me today, and I just had to write it. Something tells me that Ralph wouldn't really preserve his 'big strong bad guy' image with Vanellope always hanging around with him. Not to mention that she'd make more than a few friends that weren't Ralph eventually…this is copyright Disney, obviously.**

Kids. It used to be that the giant man couldn't stand being near them, and for a good reason, but now look at him.

At least 8 of them, dangling off his arms, clinging to his legs, and generally using him as a jungle gym. And then there was the ringleader, sitting up on his shoulder in her usual place, messing about with his hair, speaking between 3 conversations, and wiggling around, among other things. She was the most energetic at the moment.

She snickered at how he was scowling at her, then proceeded to chew on her hoodie string as she scooted to a farther part of his shoulder to admire her work.

"look, twins! Now all I need to do is make that face you always do!" the 'respectful' president then proceeded to make the stupidest-looking frown known to all programming, and laugh. The other kids followed suit, because she was the ringleader, after all.

He knew this was better than how all his previous interactions with kids were, but he found himself questioning just how much better it was. Before it had just been unbearable.

Anywhere he went, everyone was either visibly scared of him or hiding it. But the kids, the _kids _were the worst.

They would look up at him, completely terrified, sometimes trembling with fear, as if they expected him to be like some monster that hid under beds and in closets.

It was even worse when they tried to approach. Sometimes they'd do it with a small weapon, striking a pose like a knight about to kill a dragon, and rush at him bravely. Their blows always simply bounced off, and someone would quickly pull them away from him.

Other times, they would approach him shyly, big, imploring eyes looking up at him and trying to strike friendly conversation. That was the worst.

Some adult character would always come along before they could exchange two sentences, ushering the kid away and saying "Don't talk to him, he's a bad guy. Don't talk to them." And it genuinely hurt. He would always have to go to Tappers when that happened, because, although it was rare that that situation occurred, he would always need a drink afterwards.

Yes, it was much better now. He decided.

Now though…now he was a joke.

At first, he'd only had to deal with one. He was willing to do anything for his first and best friend though, so when she asked if she could bring a friend she had recently made over to hang out with them, he had said yes.

Turns out, that was a big mistake. The day after the extra kid, two more came, along with her, and soon there were tons of them running around. They climbed all over the giant, and ran around in circles, and he was the only adult, so he had to watch them.

Whenever he went anywhere, even if it started out as just him and the president, she would always find a new friend, who would bring their friends, until he had a whole pack of them running around his huge feet at all times.

When other people saw this, they laughed. No longer was anyone intimidated by him, which was beyond great, in some ways. In other ways, though… well, once it was a well-known fact that he always had so many kids with him, Bowser began dropping his kids off with him, like he was running a day-care center.

It was demeaning.

So while all these kids climbed all over him, he just sort of let them, as long as they didn't do anything really bad, and waited until his ever-improving patience wore thin. When that point hit, the president knew to clear the area of other kids, and calmed him down so that he was still sane at the end of the day.

He wasn't entirely sure how much more of this daycare stuff he could take, so when he had spare time, without _any _kids with him, a rarity considering that most people could come to the conclusion that the president was glued to his side, he looked into another character that could do his accidental job of watching all of the kids.

Finally he found Babysitting Mama, who was already running an actual daycare. After a day or two, he had managed to get almost all of the kids that stuck around him to stay with her.

They all loved the fact that she paid attention to each of them individually, and that she could cook. She was programmed to do this, and loved doing it too, so she enjoyed her little after-hours daycare as well.

The only kid that stuck with the giant man was the smart-mouthed girl with the hoodie. She didn't like being babied, and she much preferred to stick with her best pal anyways.

A few weeks after he had solved his little problem, he was eating lunch with her in his game.

"Hey Stinkbrain." She addressed him with her nickname she had made for him.

He glanced up from his sandwich, still chewing. "Yeah kid?" he didn't really have manners, so he spoke with his mouth full.

"Can I have a friend over?"

**AN: This was a new style for me, I tried to not mention either of them by name. It was just a little practice, really. I liked the way I left the ending open. I hope you enjoyed this little one-shot, tell me what you think about it! Thanks for reading!**

**-Great-growlithe-gamer **


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